Twenty-five years ago today, a judge in the federal district court in San Francisco found that game publisher Activision had infringed on a patent filed in 1979 by Ralph Baer, the man often associated as the creator of home videogames. This decision, in many ways, paved the way for new management to take over the struggling publisher and turn it into the giant it is today.
According to the complaint, which was filed by patent licensor Magnavox, Activision released eleven Atari 2600 game cartridges between 1980 and 1984 that violated U.S. Patent 4,342,454, which relates to the ability for a videogame to store player input into RAM for later access — instant replay, in other words.
